


And the Sound upon the Roof Is Only Water

by the_genderman



Series: Maybe This Time We'll Get It Right [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Hair Brushing, M/M, Recovery, Sequel, non-sexual nudity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-16 02:07:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13044273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_genderman/pseuds/the_genderman
Summary: A sequel to Cold Contagious, although it can be read as a standalone.Steve and Bucky are back together, trying to make things work. Sometimes it's not easy, but they're trying.





	And the Sound upon the Roof Is Only Water

Steve cracked the roof access door just enough to squeeze his umbrella through. He opened the umbrella and pushed the door open, stepping over the threshold and immediately into a shallow puddle. The rain was beating down, cold and windblown, before running into the raingutters. It drummed on his umbrella and cascaded over the edges. It drove sideways, soaking his jeans. Kicking the prop rock into place to keep the door from shutting completely, he pulled out his pocket flashlight and clicked it on. He swept the beam across the rooftop patio. He knew he probably should’ve brought the throw blanket back in with him earlier, but he’d gotten distracted by his phone and by the time he realized it was still out there, the sun was going down and eh, it could wait until tomorrow. Then the rain started.

So Steve was up on the roof, trying to remember where he’d left the blanket and wondering if it could have blown away. No, unlikely. A sodden blanket would be too heavy to blow away unless the wind seriously picked up. His flashlight beam played over the deck chairs. There it was, sitting in an amorphous pile on the closer chair. Steve startled as he realized that the second chair was also occupied.

“Bucky?” he blurted out. “What are you doing up here? When did you get home?”

Bucky turned his head, squinting against the light. He was slumped back in the long chair, arms crossed over his chest, hair plastered to his face, thoroughly soaked. “’Bout twenty minutes ago. I didn’t want to come in and spoil the mood just yet, so I came up here.”

“The sun’s been down for an hour and it’s raining, Buck,” Steve said, crossing the roof to stand in front of Bucky. He angled the flashlight down so as not to blind him.

“Only started raining about ten minutes ago,” Bucky shrugged.

“Still,” Steve insisted. “Why didn’t you come in when it started? Is this helping improve the mood?”

Bucky snorted. “Whadya think?” he asked rhetorically.

“Well, you can’t stay out here all night,” Steve replied calmly, trying to ignore the belligerence creeping into Bucky’s voice. In a belated gesture of goodwill, he held out the umbrella to keep the worst of the rain off of Bucky’s head and shoulders. He shuddered a little as the cold water ran down the back of his neck.

Steve knew that Bucky didn’t always have the easiest time opening up at therapy, and consequently sometimes came home with loose threads and unasked questions eating away at him. Some days his therapy sessions made him a little worse before they made him better, but it was a long game, and, on the whole, it was paying off. Didn’t mean he didn’t get a little annoyed when Bucky came home as sulky as he’d ever been before, but at least now the attitude didn’t seem to be nearly as permanent.

“Not like I’m gonna catch pneumonia or anything,” Bucky said, the heat dissipating from his voice.

“No,” Steve replied, “but it can’t be pleasant, sitting out in the cold getting rained on.”

Bucky just shrugged again.

“Come inside, please?” Steve asked, his eyes gentle, a tentative-but-hopeful small smile on his lips. “You’re allowed to come inside and spend time with me even when you’re being—or want to be—a pain in the ass. Remember? We’re working through this together.”

“Wow, _such_ a smooth talker, aren’t you?” Bucky said, almost laughing, as he shifted and stood up, taking Steve’s offered hand.

It was Steve’s turn to shrug as he slipped his arm around Bucky’s waist and turned towards the door.

\--------------------------

At least Bucky was wearing sensible, waterproof boots. Steve’s feet were squelching inside the sneakers he’d hastily pulled on, and they left wet footprints down the stairs and into their apartment. The sooner he could get out of these wet clothes and get warm and dry again, the better. And _he_ ’d only been out in the rain for a few minutes—Bucky had been out there getting soaked to the bone for at least twice as long. Shutting the door behind them, Steve paused on the entry mat to pull off his wet shoes and socks.

“Wait here, please,” Steve asked Bucky as he headed towards the kitchen, socks in hand, pulling the living room curtains shut along the way. Bucky gave him a skeptical look, but did as asked.

Steve pulled the bag put of their kitchen trash bin, tied it off, and dropped his wet socks into the newly-empty plastic bin with a dull splat. Bringing the bin back to where Bucky was standing, Steve pulled his shirt over his head and added it to the bin.

“No sense in dripping all the way to the towel closet,” Steve explained. “How about you get out of those wet clothes? I know neither of us can ‘catch a chill’ anymore, but wet jeans are just the _worst_ , right Buck?”

“They’re… not exactly comfortable,” Bucky admitted, removing his boots and wriggling awkwardly out of the offending pants.

When he and Bucky had both stripped down and deposited their water-logged clothes into the bin, Steve reached out and put his hand on Bucky’s shoulder. He flinched a little, feeling how cold Bucky was to his touch.

“Your skin is like ice,” Steve said quickly, concern pulling his mouth into a frown. “I’m gonna go start some coffee brewing, to help get you warmed up from the inside, then throw these in the dryer. Then we can curl up on the couch under as many blankets as we can handle, alright?”

“Yeah, sure,” Bucky replied casually.

“You don’t seem too concerned about this,” Steve said.

“I’ll get over it.”

“Do you _like_ being cold?”

“Well, _no_ …”

Steve said nothing, but he gave Bucky a pointed look.

“Fiiiiine,” Bucky said, dragging the word out. He turned and slowly began walking to the bedroom. He paused, turned, and spoke again. “And if you’re gonna complain about _me_ being cold and wet and not doing anything about it, then _you_ ’d better get your ass on a towel ASAP and get your flannels on, too.”

“I can do that,” Steve laughed and headed into the kitchen with the bin.

\-----------------------------

Dry again and comfortably ensconced in his warmest pajamas and fuzziest slippers, Steve padded back to the kitchen to pour himself his first cup of coffee of the night. The dryer was thrumming away quietly in its nook, and Bucky had his feet tucked up on the couch under a duvet with a cup of whipped cream that probably contained some coffee, but Steve couldn’t quite tell from across the room. At least the evening seemed to be getting back on track again. He grabbed a bag of chips from the pantry and went to join Bucky on the couch.

Steve had barely sat down before he dropped his shoulders and gave a resigned sigh. Bucky’s hair was still wet. Not dripping anymore, but still definitely wet.

“Buck, why?” he asked tiredly. Please, please don’t let Bucky be slipping back into his old, bad habits.

“Why what?” Bucky asked, all innocence.

“Why is your hair still wet? Why are you fighting me tonight? Are you having a bad brain day and that’s why we’re struggling? I thought we were doing pretty well these past few months,” Steve asked, placing a hand lightly on top of the duvet over what he believed was probably Bucky’s knee.

Bucky raised a hand to his hair, grabbed a lock, and pulled it forward to be scrutinized. He pursed his lips and gave a ‘well, you got me there’ look. “I mean, I towel dried it a little,” he explained.

“And did you get distracted or decide that ‘still damp’ was good enough?”

“Can we go with bad brain day? Today’s session was kinda rough,” Bucky said after a moment of silence.

“Hence why you felt like you needed to punish yourself by sitting out on the roof getting rained on?” Steve asked, hoping his tone would be interpreted as ‘gently teasing’ rather than ‘gently accusing.’

“Sure, yeah, let’s say that,” Bucky said, looking down into his coffee mug before tossing off the last of his drink.

“How about I go grab your hairdryer and we can do something about your hair?” Steve asked.

“I mean, if you wanna,” Bucky said, unwinding himself from the duvet a little to set his empty mug on the coffee table. “I thought one of your things was you didn’t want to always be the one taking care of me?”

“I don’t, but you’ve been doing a lot better since you started therapy, and I’m hopeful this is just a temporary backslide. As long as you’re aware of what’s going on and you’re not _deliberately_ fighting me, I will always be there for you. Which sometimes means things’ll be a little unbalanced for a while, but that’s life. And I really am gonna go get your hairdryer now,” Steve said, standing up and turning towards the bedroom.

Bucky just smiled and shook his head a little. When Steve returned with said hairdryer and a comb, he turned himself sideways and scooted his back up to the arm of the sofa. He pulled his knees up, not tight to his chest, but comfortably compact under the duvet. He heard the soft ‘thk’ of the hairdryer being plugged in. Then Steve’s hand was on his head, stroking, fingers carding through his wet hair, gently loosening the worst of the tangles. The hairdryer whirred to life and Bucky let himself relax a little. He closed his eyes and bowed his lead a little as Steve combed out the ends of his hair, moving steadily up. In this moment there were no worries, no regrets; just him and Steve and Steve’s hands reminding him that there is warmth and gentleness in this world. Neither he nor Steve spoke, the steady drone of the hairdryer and the thrum of the clothes dryer the only sounds.

“Hey, Steve?” Bucky said when Steve turned the hairdryer off.

“Yeah?” Steve replied, his fingers resting on Bucky’s shoulders.

“First of all, thanks; I needed this. But I’ve got a question. I don’t think you came up to the roof to look for me, so why _were_ you up there?” Bucky asked, turning his head to look at Steve over his shoulder.

“I went up to bring in the… oh. The throw blanket,” Steve answered, realization dawning. “It’s still out there.”

“Well, at this point, it can’t get any wetter than it already is, right? You’re not gonna go back out to get it, are you?” Bucky asked, leaning back and angling himself closer to Steve, silently asking him not to leave.

“Nah, I can always get it tomorrow. How about you pick a movie or show and I’ll get you a refill on your coffee. Then I can get under that duvet with you and we can veg out for the rest of the evening. Sound good?”

“I’d like that.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title is taken from the They Might Be Giants song "It's Not My Birthday."


End file.
